This was also essentially flat with six months ago despite the economic slowdown.

The survey of 51,000 respondents found that 80 percent of prospective phone upgraders wanted full address book applications in their next phone, 74 percent wanted voice recognition features and 67 percent wanted short text messaging.

U.S. wireless telephone companies are in the process of launching advanced wireless networks with high-speed Internet connections, allowing users to surf the Web, send each other photos and download music.

They are hoping the new higher-speed wireless data capability will become the next catalyst for growth in an industry that has seen a slowdown in the rate of new subscribers signing up for service.


Adding subscribers has become more difficult as the economy slowed and the market nears saturation with almost 50 percent of Americans owning cell phones.

Telephia said 26 percent of those who planned to upgrade their phones were interested in built-in camera capabilities, 30 percent wanted photo viewing and multimedia functions, 37 percent wanted personal digital assistant capabilities and 29 percent were interested in music listening features.

Search For More Info

Web www.cellular.co.za